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In three weeks, fans of good TV science fiction are going to be in mourning. That's when "Battlestar Galactica" will conclude its five year run on the SciFi Channel.
If you've never seen BSG you've been missing some very entertaining television because the show is frakking great. Er, excuse my French.
BSG does everything great science fiction should do, make us think about our current circumstances, our impact as humans on the universe and each other, and also gives us a mirror of our own time reflected in a fictional world. BSG does all that with depth and intelligence...and some really good space battles.
To my eternal shame, I only started watching BSG during a TV
dead zone late last summer. After hearing such great things about the show from people I trust, I thought it was time to check it out. Man, am I glad I did!
I got one DVD set after another and watched them voraciously. I'm actually glad I watched the episodes that way, because no way could I have waited from season to season for all those nail biting cliffhangers to be resolved.
If I'd had to wait months instead of days for all twelve human/Cylons to be revealed one by one, I would have been ripping my hair out.
A little history about the show: BSG is a retelling of the old BSG TV show from 1978 starring Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, and Lorne Greene. It was a television offshoot of the "Star Wars" craze and like most TV sci-fi of the time, had cheesy effects, clearly drawn good and evil characters and a hotshot pilot who liked women and big cigars. The problem was, the best thing about the show was the opening theme music and consequently the show lasted only one season.
Enter executive producer Ronald D. Moore 25 years later. He re-worked the original Glen A. Larson idea, used first class special effects, hired fantastic actors led by Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos and put together a knock out 3 hour miniseries that led to the current series run on SciFi.
The plot? Human created robots, called Cylons rebel against the human race eventually wiping out all but about 50,000 people. They then evolve into beings that can look like humans and hide among the fleet of spaceships carrying the human survivors they are pursuing.
The Galactica, a military battlestar is the protector of this fleet of refugees looking for a permanent home, Earth. It's commanded by Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos) while the civilians are led by a woman who's dying of breast cancer, President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell).
And remember Starbuck from the old series? Well he's no longer a he, but a she. Played with vibrant gusto by Katee Sackhoff, Starbuck is still the best pilot in the fleet, still smokes big cigars and loves drinking, gambling and men.
In fact, the show is filled with fabulous women characters. Not only Starbuck and President Roslin, but communications officer Anastasia "Dee" Dualla, and several incarnations of Cylon/human women played by Tricia Helfer, Grace Park and a guest starring Lucy Lawless.
BSG has mysticism, messy politics, and characters who are well drawn and fascinating. The writing is excellent, and why not with people like former "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" writer Jane Espenson penning several scripts and eventually acting as co-executive producer.
Now be warned I'm about to reveal some plot points.
Needless to say, the blogosphere has been buzzing about this show since it started and now that the end is near, that buzz has reached a mighty roar.
If you're a fan of the show, you must read Maureen Ryan's Chicago Tribune blog, The Watcher, for weekly show updates and behind the scenes interviews with the cast and crew.
Richard Hatch of the original 70's show had a recurring role in the current one and after his character Tom Zarek was executed for treason a few weeks ago, Hatch himself wrote a very interesting comment on one of Ryan's posts defending Zarek's actions.
On the flip side, Dirk Benedict, the original Starbuck, thinks the new BSG is fraked up. He wrote all about it
